Going at it by hand. We live in a terrace with no back entrance and wouldn’t get a digger ok no through the house as is.
A spade, a shovel, a fork, and I’m now the proud owner of my first pickaxe :)

I’ve been lucky so far that there’s not a lot of rock in it.
Two quotes to dig it out and put patio down were €7.5k to €10k. They reckoned about 12 skips worth. They also gave quotes with contingency included as they didn’t know whether they’d hit rock or not digging down a metre.
So, I’m digging it out myself.
We reckon, approx. 27 to 30 bags of soil to be dug out.
About 7 to 9 reused as top soil and raise the remaining garden about 6″s.
The other 20+ bags worth will have to be wheel barrowed through the house.
To keep the mess to a minimum time, we’ll wheel it through at the end of the job. I’ve a couple of lads to help me at that point.
I did the ten bags to date over 9 days, having taken day 2 off to see how I felt… was my back OK? Was badly fatigued? Thankfully I was good, and I’ve kept it to a bag or bag and a half a day.
Good news is, I only got the pickaxe yesterday, and it makes a big difference – was using just a fork before that.
That said, a pickaxe can take the energy out of you too, big time, if you swing to hard. Thankfully, I don’t need to much as it’s a 7lb head which carries enough thump in a small swing / drop.

All going well, I should be in a position to move the soil through the house in two weeks+.
Then we go back and get a fresh quote. Should be, I believe, half of the original quotes…. as both quotes said the labour and shifting the soil was a big expense. Fingers crossed ! :)

I’ve started, and I’m gonna keep at it. Been very lucky with the soil, and rock content to date, so if all goes well, two more weeks.

That said, there’s a footpath; a boiler house foundation; and small wall just outside the back door that I’ll have to use a kango on.
Plan for that rubble is to reuse it as a base foundation for a second space up the back of the garden…so won’t have to wheel that through the house.
That should take an additional week though… :/

-they useless too,completely rubbish, everything and everyone in Ireland is-he clearly states that Met Éireann does NOT provide long rang forecasts but utilizes them when appropirate on his feed !
-any excuse no matter how trivial to trash Ireland and all things Irish…
-do you think “Bomber” is a MI5 agent as has been long rumored in the Irish underworld,did they lift him to protect him, looks like the Hutch/Provo crew have a new and very effective active service unit in place after the Fowler job:)